Location: Upper East Side, NYC
Art: Bashford Dean and the Creation of the Arms and Armor Department
Show time: See website for schedule; Through September 29, 2013
Venue: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Food: Barking Dog Luncheonette
Drink: The Auction House
Miscellaneous: Uptown Lounge

To mark the centennial of the Arms and Armor Department, the Bashford Dean and the Creation of the Arms and Armor Department exhibition surveys the career of Dr. Bashford Dean (1867–1928), the department’s founding curator. A zoologist by training, Dean was for a time simultaneously a full professor at Columbia University, Curator of Fishes at the American Museum of Natural History, and Curator of Arms and Armor at the Metropolitan Museum. At the Met, he worked initially as a guest curator in 1904, when he was invited to install and catalog the Museum’s first significant acquisitions of arms and armor. He continued on as honorary curator until joining the staff full time in 1912 as head of the newly created Arms and Armor Department, rapidly building the collection into one of international importance. In the process he fostered an influential group of private collectors, established American scholarship on the subject, and laid the foundations for the growth of the collection as it exists today. If you love dogs, not hot dogs but real doggies, then you’ll really love the Barking Dog Luncheonette, as the décor features everything with a dog on it. The food, is your regular diner fare with plenty of burger, sandwich, and hot plate options. Grab a drink and feel like you were transported to the late 1800’s at The Auction House. With ornamental red velvet couches, exposed brick walls, and vintage chandeliers, this hidden gem of a bar is cozy. Beautifully designed, Uptown Lounge is a bar and restaurant serving American fare like Apple Peppercorn Pork Chops ($18), while being big enough to stick around afterwards for drinks.